Nations don’t have friends, they have interests.
Just think of Churchill and Roosevelt had been friends!
H.W. Bush, I suspect when he was in charge of the CIA, got his hands on some software of a known class, but far more complex and unique.
Police departments use similar software that is so effective, that some police brought it to Iraq during the occupation and used it to great effect against the insurgents.
What it does is collate and data mine information, and thus establish connections between suspects, events, and criminal acts. The more data you feed in, the better it gets, until you start seeing “linkages” that even brilliant analysts miss.
H.W. Bush publicly referred to “linkages” in foreign affairs, but only a few people realized what he really meant. Basically that nations have tens of thousands, often millions of connections between them; and that by manipulating some of them, you can affect seemingly unrelated connections.
Importantly, this goes way over the head of strategic analysts, like playing 3D chess when they are playing checkers. It was how he was so quickly to mobilize a coalition against Iraq in the first Gulf War.
However, he seems to have taken this software with him when he left CIA, and now it is wholly owned by the Bush family.
W. Bush used it to sweep away primary competition before he ran for office, by locking up all the big party donors. He was so confident that he ordered construction of his ranch a year out.
Sadly, it is likely that Jeb Bush has it, too, which is going to mean an incredible fight for the Tea Party to prevent him from being the nominee.